Sunglow
by Twinflamable
Summary: After Overwatch rescues Amelie Lacroix from Talon, Angela Ziegler has trouble believing that she really is okay.
1. Chapter 1

Running her palm over the charts on her clipboard as though smoothing out creases in the paper, Angela exhaled. Long and slow, warm breath pushing her blond bangs from her eyes, she let her eyes close simply stood there in the hallway. She let things be still, the pristine hallways of the Overwatch research facility a sanctum of peace for a corporation that was otherwise all weapons, tactics, battles and casualties. All words that doctor Angela Ziegler hated.

Not words she would confront today. She opened her eyes and looked over the charts again. Amelie Lacroix was not a casualty. The woman was uninjured and psychologically sound, at least by the numbers. If only Angela could convince herself to trust them, to believe that Amelie was as okay as she seemed. That she was not a casualty.

Angela's eyes narrowed, and she glared at her hands. "Oh, stop stalling." She stepped forward and pushed open the door. With her very first step into the small room, she was inside of Amelie Lacroix's substantial personal space.

The tall, thin French woman looked up, sunglow eyes wide and round like child's, nose small, jaw sharp and lips full. Her face was a healthy pink, her dark hair gleaming in the sunlight through the window. Amelie stood without weakness or hesitation. "Doctor Ziegler."

Amgela smiled. "Hello, Amelie. How are you feeling today?"

"I feel fine." Amelie's eyes flicked to the side, and then she shrugged. Her lips curled upward, brows rising. "I feel fine. Just like yesterday, and the day before."

The woman's light voice brushed between Angela's ribs, loosening the stressed muscles in her chest and back, softening her heart. Maybe she was wrong to worry. Angela's smile came a measure easier. "Well, you finally have me convinced. I think it's time for you to go home and see Gerard again."

Amelie hummed and looked down at herself. She straightened the white, button-up shirt she wore over plain gray slacks. "Do you think I'm dressed well enough to see my husband again?"

"I think you're beautiful." That came out a bit easier than Angela had expected it to, but she just chuckled at herself. "He's your husband. All he wants is for you to be healthy and happy. That's all any of us want."

"I'm healthy and happy." Amelie nodded, as if this required additional confirmation. "When can I go?"

"Immediately, if you want."

"I wouldn't want you to think that I was simply fleeing the hospital. I appreciate you taking care of me. Even if you've been doing it a few days longer than planned."

"Amelie." Angela shook her head, golden hair swinging about her face like curtains decorating a painting. "You should run from me. Run back to your husband as quickly and desperately as you can."

Humming again, this time a neutral sound instead of a happy one, Amelie turned to look out the window. "Yes. I suppose I should." She adjusted the buttons on the cuffs of her sleeves.

Angela crossed her arms and hugged the clipboard to her chest. She watched Amelie, the way the woman's very long, thin hair hung well past her waist, the way her thin form stood perfect as a monument framed by the sunlight, the sharp angles of her neck and jaw, her cheeks and eyebrows. Thin fingers moved over buttons, unfastening and fastening, turning them. Amelie plucked at the wrinkles in her shirt where it was tucked into her slacks, trying to get it to hang just so.

Eyes closing, Angela sighed again. She found no stillness here, though. Amelie's presence pushed up against her awareness and the clipboard seemed heavy in her hands. Angela opened her eyes, looked over her patient's legs and the arch of her back, her muscled shoulders. Her patient. Someone she was meant to take care of. Angela gathered her breath only to speak very softly, "Amelie."

Sunglow eyes turned. "Hm?"

"Are you sure that you're okay?" Angela's hands tightened on her clipboard until her knuckles turned white. She could feel her brow wrinkling in discomfort but couldn't stop it. "You don't need to tell us what happened if you don't want to, just to tell us that you need help."

"Doctor Ziegler." Amelie groaned in a friendly, charmed sort of way, smiling that smile that softened Angela's heart, but this time it didn't bring any comfort. "Talon didn't do anything to me. I'm fine. I just wish I had some nicer clothes or time for a haircut."

Angela set her clipboard aside and walked across the small room, heals clicking on the floor, white coat shuffing around her legs. "Let me see." She stepped behind Amelie and bundled the woman's long hair in her hands.

Amelie did not object, though she stood a bit bewildered. "Doctor Ziegler, why are you taking such care of me?"

"Because I'm a doctor." Angela reached up to her own hair, plucking the tie that held her ponytail in place. Her golden her fell in a disordered pile, and she shook it out behind her head. Then she used the tie to do up the taller womans much darker, much longer hair.

"You're also a member of Overwatch, aren't you? Mercy?"

Angela paused, exhaling. "Yes." Her fingers lingered in Amelie's hair, the ponytail half-done. "The thing is. Overwatch uses force. And I'm… Well, I'm not quite a pacifist. But let's say that I don't agree with making violence one's modus operandi."

"Then why join Overwatch?"

"To help people. To save lives." Angela noticed her fingertips were curling against Amelie's skin at the woman's hairline, petting downward along the tendons there. But Amelie hadn't complained. Angela lifted her fingers and ran them down the woman's neck again, experimenting with the maternal gesture. It made her feel warm to touch Amelie like that. She ran her fingers slowly over the woman's skin, over the lithe, powerful muscles on the woman's neck, and she noticed that Amelie's shoulders relaxed and the woman's breath slowed. Angela ran her hand down the woman's neck and between her shoulderblades. Still no complaint, as Angela pressed her fingertips on either side of Amelie's spine and moved them back up, wrinkling her shirt.

Amelie sighed, leaning slightly into the touch. The gesture was so slight it was almost unnoticeable.

But it was noticeable. Angela inhaled sharply and moved her hands back to Amelie's hair, face red. "I tolerate Overwatch so that I can help more people. You didn't deserve to be taken by Talon. I'm here to take care of you." She tied off Amelie's new ponytail and eased backwad. "Done."

Amelie turned around as Angela stepped away, so fast that for a moment there was less than half a meter between their faces. Amelie's features were wide and pink, mouth slightly open, sunglow eyes gleaming. Angela completed her step, however, almost pushed back by some pressure between them. The tall woman's long arms swung behind her and she joined her hands there. "Thank you. Doctor." She blinked, pondered. "Ange-…" She shook her head. "Doctor Ziegler. Thank you."

Angela felt herself smiling, but her cheeks were numb.

"I should go home, now." Amelie stepped sideways and spun. As her sunglow eyes turned away, her dark hair arched behind her like a flash of nightfall. She took a nightbag in one hand — she'd accrued very few belongings during her week in Angela's care — and long legs swung in great strides, getting her to the door in an instant. She opened it and paused. "Bonsoir."

"Goodbye." Angela began, speaking in a distracted sort of half-murmur. "I'm going to check on you soon."

Amelie looked over her shoulder, a flash of sunglow through the night of her hair. "I'll… Okay. Thank you." She smiled, and she was gone. The door clicked shut behind her.

Angela collapsed onto a chair in the corner, leaning forward as though her head was suddenly very heavy. Her ever-unruly hair fell over her features, shrouding her in a wash of gold. "Amelie, please be okay."


	2. Chapter 2

Angela Ziegler watched the sun through the window of her office seemingly without end for two days. Her desk collected reports from her assistants and the other researchers. She half-remembered reading through some portion of them, answering a few phone calls and emails, but she'd done that in a daze. Angela did not have to retreat into the long, white hallways with eyes closed to achieve stillness and peace anymore. Though her thoughts and heart had been a rushing storm for most of the past week, two days ago, she had been shocked still by eyes of sunlight, and Angela had been still ever since. Quiet. Staring at the sunlight through the windows.

The world was still around her. No calls of violence came to Overwatch. She knew the other members were out on patrols, on investigations, as if they were looking for trouble. But Angela Ziegler sat still in the midst of the stillness. What was the world waiting for? What was she waiting for? What was going to happen?

The was a knock on her open door.

Angela turned her absent gaze that way slowly, and then she saw Amelie Lacroix's sunglow eyes and snapped awake. Sitting forward, Angela coughed the name, "Amelie," and went to lean on her desk. Her elbows and arms met with stacks of paperwork, however, the piles seeming to have tripled in size since she'd last noticed them. Stunned into confusion by them, Angela only belatedly noticed that one of the stacks was toppling, and she stood to catch it too late, groaning as she reached for the paperwork that slid from her desk and spun into the open air.

Amelie Lacroix had tried to catch the pile as well. The woman's black hair was bundled up into a high ponytail, just like Angela had done it up in, and the woman was still wearing a plain combination of slacks and button-up shirt, but this time her wrist clattered with the sound of metal bracelets and a necklace clicked about on her neck. She failed to catch the paperwork, and ended up on her knees in a pile of unsorted reports and memos.

"Oh, Amelie!" Angela pressed her hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry. I was dozing."

"Désolé. I didn't mean to surprise you." Amelie's sunglow eyes looked over the paperwork in front of her. She picked up a few pages and appeared vexed as she could not immediately relate one page to the next. Of course not. They were completely disorganized now. "I hope I didn't ruin anything."

"Not your fault. Don't worry." Angela pushed her chair out from behind her. Her white coat lay over the back of the chair, but the white dress Angela wore was not very different, collared and buttoned down the front, hanging well past her knees. "Just leave it. It will force me to read through it all anyway."

Amelie frowned, her narrow brows leaning towards one another as she looked at page after page. "I really didn't mean to make a mess… Merde. I should've just called." The woman moved the paperwork around her into small piles without really organizing them.

"No, I'm glad you're here." Angela put a hand on Amelie's shoulder.

The thin woman stopped, her eyes turning on the hand that touched her. Angela almost felt the warmth of sunlight moving over her skin as Amelie's gaze followed Angela's arm to her face. Amelie's lips parted to speak, but she made no sound. Then her jaw screwed shut and she exhaled in frustration, turning her eyes away. Lines of concern drew over her brow and her cheeks reddened, one dipping inward and dimpling as she bit it. Finally, she left the paperwork alone and stood, her body unfurling from its bent posture, legs straightening, until she was looking down on Angela while the doctor's hand slid slowly off her shoulder and down her arm.

Angela's pink lips closed tight and shifted. She stared at the stray strands of dark hair hanging over Amelie's face.

Amelie looked at where Angela's hand rested on her arm, and then back to the doctor's blue eyes. "Doctor Ziegler?"

"Ah." Angela withdrew her hand and was informed by her aching lower lip that she'd been biting it. She brushed at her face in some misguided attempt to conceal the gesture. "I'm sorry. I was distracted by thoughts of research."

"If you're busy I can-"

"No, Amelie." Angela put her fingertips on Amelie's arm again. Why did she keep touching her? Angela tried to put her hands in her pockets, but she wasn't wearing her coat, so she just ended up patting her thighs awkwardly. "I was… hmm… I was going to check in on you tomorrow. Why are you…?" Her nervous gestures paused, and she gave Amelie a very serious look. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, no." Amelie lifted her palms to assuage Angela's suddenly concerned demeanor. "I feel fine. No health problems at all."

"I don't mean just physical health, Amelie." Angela stepped back and cast her gaze around the office for Amelie's file. It should still be on her clipboard. She'd been looking over it not too long ago. "Are you sleeping alright? How's your appetite?"

"They're both fine, Doctor Ziegler. It's nothing like that." When Amelie looked out the window, her eyes almost glowed. "Is there a counselor I can talk to maybe?"

Angela trotted behind her desk and picked up her clipboard. "Amelie, please talk to me." There was a slight flavor of selfishness in those words that Angela herself barely tasted. She was trained in basic counseling, but probably wasn't the kind of professional Amelie had been asking for.

"Fine." Amelie looked ceiling-ward. "It's Gerard. No, it's not. It's me."

Lifting the clip-board, Angela really didn't read it at all. It was just somewhere for her to put her eyes other than on Amelie, so that Amelie didn't feel watched. Although Angela, back in front of her desk and leaning against it, did subtly watch her. "Amelie. You can feel comfortable sharing anything with me."

"It's these." Amelie lifted her wrists, hands hanging down, to show her clattering bracelets.

Angela looked up and just blinked. "The… hmm?"

Amelie shook her wrists and the bracelets clattered. The woman's brows dipped so pathetically over her sunglow eyes, begging Angela to guess at whatever the problem was so that she wouldn't have to say it.

"Amelie, I don't understand."

"He's buying me things." The tall woman looked at the floor, and her shoulders seemed to droop. "He buying me things and I don't like them."

Releasing a deep breath, Angela leaned forward over her clipboard. Her face felt warm, and she found herself concealing a small smile. It wasn't Amelie's fault that she was so adorable, but there she was. All Angela could say was, "Oh, Amelie."

"I don't know why it's so upsetting." Amelie turned up her wrists and looked at the bracelets like they were shackles. "He used to buy me things on special occasions and I loved them, and I'd wear them. But now, I know he's buying them to try and make me feel better, but I don't like them. They're uncomfortable. I don't know if they're pretty or not."

"_You_ are pretty." Angela spoke without moving. "They're just decoration. Gerard knows that."

Amelie gave an annoyed, helpless look, as though Angela had completely missed the point.

Angela stood and walked around behind her desk, grabbing her chair and wheeling it out. "Amelie, come sit down." She pushed the chair beside her desk and turned it towards the woman.

"Doctor Ziegler. I don't…"

"Come on." Angela sat on her desk near the chair. "Let's talk."

That was, after all, what Amelie had come to do. Still, she shifted, crossing her arms over her waist and moving her weight back and forth. Finally, she did walk over and drop into the chair, though she looked at the floor instead of at Angela. "It's just that he's buying me things, and the things don't help. I don't need things or want things. I need someone to talk to. To connect to. It's like he's not even trying."

Angela smiled across at Amelie. Even though Amelie's chair was lower than Angela's desk, the two women were at eye-level to one another. Reaching out and resting a hand on Amelie's shoulder was easy, and this time it felt appropriate. "I'm sure he's trying."

"That's worse, isn't it?" Amelie made small, helpless gestures. "Because then he's trying and I'm trying and it's not working. I wasn't even gone that long. Why doesn't it feel like we're not connected anymore? He's my husband."

"Amelie, it might take time." Shaking her golden hair out of her face, Angela curled her fingers in Amelie's shirt, pressing into the woman's muscles. Just like two days ago, the woman leaned into the touch. Recalling how Amelie had relaxed previously, Angela scooted herself a few millimeters forward on her desk and moved her hand up from Amelie's shoulder to the woman's neck.

Amelie muttered, "It didn't take very long for me to feel connected to you."

A warmth rose from Angela's chest to redden her face, just in time for Amelie to look over and see her blush. The sunglow eyes widened just slightly, glowing a bit brighter, and Angela tried to save face by turning her gaze away before Amelie could discern how much those words had affected her. She was sure she failed, however, because she did not fully look away, instead watching Amelie's face. All the while, her fingers rested against the skin of Amelie's neck, the touch warm. "Well. Often it's easier for two people to connect who have never… Hmm."

Bright eyes watched Angela. Amelie's shoulders swelled with breath beneath Angela's hand, and the exhale was slow and shuttering. At this, Angela's hand tightened, and she stopped trying to look away. Amelie's features turned a shader pink, her eyelids lowering until they half-veiled her gaze. The she reached her hand up and put it over Angela's hand on her neck, pressing the woman's finger's more firmly against her skin. The touch made Angela gasp audibly, embarrassingly.

But Amelie turned away then, turning the chair so that her back was facing Angela and the woman could reach her neck more easily. "I feel like something bad is about to happen. In general."

Taking Amelie's movements as an invitation, Angela pressed both hands against Amelie's skin, moving her fingers over the woman's neck and through the base of her hairline. "What do you mean?" The redness on her face persisted, but with Amelie looking away, she more boldly touched the woman.

"It's just a feeling I have." Amelie leaned into Angela's hands. "It's foreboding. It doesn't make any sense. I know Overwatch saved me, but it doesn't feel like I've escaped for long. It feels like something worse is going to happen, and this time nobody's going to be able to save me from it."

"Amelie. Feelings like that, and depression, and disconnection, are all very common among survivors of traumas." Angela responded to Amelie's movements, pressing her fingers against the muscles that Amelie was leaning towards her. But she also enjoyed the touch for its own sake. Each time she moved her fingertips up and then back down again, she let her touch roam further. Down Amelie's neck, outward along her shoulders, forward beneath Amelie's jaw and down towards her collarbone. The woman's shirt shifted easily, the collar spreading open under the slightest urging.

"Traumas. But Talon didn't do anything to me." Her voice was breathy. She leaned herself back towards Angela, the chair tilting back with the movement, and rested one hand over Angela's hand.

"Are you sure, Amelie? You know you don't need-"

"I'm sure." Amelie tilted her face up towards the ceiling, eyes closed. Angela, leaning forward, looked directly down at Amelie's features.

And Angela, mouth parted slightly and holding her breath, let herself look openly, closely, at Amelie's face. "Even so. These feelings aren't anything to be ashamed or afraid of." Angela noticed her own tone quieting, trying to relax Amelie, to relax herself. Relaxing them together. She pulled Amelie's chair towards her, so that the woman's head was practically in her lap. Angela no longer restricted her touch to Amelie's back. Fingertips perused Amelie's jawline, the front of her neck and collarbones. The collar of her shirt spread wide as Angela ran her hands outward, and the fabric strained against the buttons. "For now you should spend time with people who make who you feel better. Stay close to people who make you feel safe."

The hand Amelie rested on Angela's hand dropped, so that her hands hung down behind her. She sighed and whispered, "You make me feel safe." Her hanging hands swung back and touched Angela's legs, fixing on them at the ankles.

Angela's mouth parted in a silent gasp, and heat resonated out from the touch. She was warm all over, so warm that she found herself leaning her face downward towards Amelie's.

"You make me feel safe, Angela." Amelie's eyes opened a sliver each, sunglow bright like dawn.

Angela's hands ran down Amelie's chest, pushing her shirt open, and she moved her fingers to open one of the buttons. When she unfastened it, the shirt slid off her shoulders, down her chest, displaying the perfect pale skin from her collarbones to the lacy top of her bra. Amelie's hands tightened on Angela's ankles, and Angela lifted her legs, putting her feet on the armrests of the chair so that her knees were against the skin of Amelie's shoulders, so that Amelie was hugging her calves.

Amelie stared. "Angela." Her hands slid up Angela's calves, over her knees. Her fingers spread over Angela's thighs and pushed her dress up her legs.

Golden hair fell between their faces as Angela leaned down to Amelie, so that their noses were only millimeters apart. The heat of their bodies and breath, the light of Amelie's gaze and Angela's hair, surrounded their faces. Angela paused, struggling to breathe against the tightness in her chest. "Amelie. Is this okay?"

Amelie's lips moved, opening, her face lifting subtly towards Angela's in seeming anticipation. Her hands pushed further along Angela's thighs, beneath her dress, until they found the line of Angela's hips, and there her fingertips curled. "You're so warm."

Angela ran one hand over Amelie's bra, and down along her belly, feeling the tight muscles stretched magnificently by Amelie's backward lean. Her other hand cradled Amelie's jaw, keeping their faces close. "Is this okay?" She needed the woman's permission. She couldn't just… "Can I do this, Amelie? Can I help you feel better?"

"You do make me feel better."

That was close enough. Angela leaned forward, her lips opening, her eyes closing.

And suddenly Amelie wasn't there anymore. The warmth receded in an instant of whirling air, Angela's hair shivering in front of her face. She could vaguely feel Amelie's hands slide off of her thighs, the tall woman's body slide out from beneath her, but mostly she just felt the chill that was left when the warmth went away. Her legs and hands were cold, and a chill washed over her face. Her lips, so ready for heat and the touch of another's lips, close over open air. In the veil of her golden hair, Angela was suddenly alone.

She snapped her gaze up, dazed as though she'd been suffocating and was only just then permitted to breathe. Amelie stood in front of the chair, back to Angela, sunglow eyes turned away, buttoning her shirt and fixing the collar. The long ponytail, the thin shaft of night, hung between them.

Angela's mouth hung open, her shoulders rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath and understand what had just happened. "A-… Amelie?"

"I need to leave." The woman's voice was far from empty. It was burdened with the same worry and concern she'd carried with her, only tripled. Her tone trembled, just like she'd narrowly dodged out of some accident. "Thank you for… the talk."

"Wait." Angela tried to shake her golden hair out of her face, but she felt dizzy. "Amelie, I'm sorry. Let's talk about… what just…"

"Au revoir, Angela." Without even looking back, Amelie turned and rushed towards the door of the office, knocking over piles of disordered paperwork on her way. She didn't even stop for those. The woman brushed at her face on her way out.

"Amelie, wait!" Angela felt paralyzed. She was frozen, sitting on her desk with her feet on the armrests of the chair in front of her, her dress pushed up around her hips, head bent forward, arms hanging in front of her. "I'm sorry, Amelie! Es duet mr leid!"

There was no answer. The woman was gone, leaving only the open door and an office full of ruined paperwork that Angela was still going to have to do. Angela didn't see the office, however. She looked back down at the chair in front of her, where Amelie had been moments ago, remembering the warmth of the woman, the look in her eyes, the way her own body had roiled with heat and need. Angela lifted a hand and pressed it against her lips, trying to stave off their maddened hunger for another woman's mouth. Angela shivered. "Oh my god." She put her hands over her head and curled herself over her knees. Tears welled up like a sprung leak, and she shut her eyes against them. "Oh my god, what did I do? What is wrong with me? Ich ha chalt. Ich ha chalt."


End file.
